So a little over half an hour passed as we wined and dined, making hollow, pleasant conversation—until the hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stood up.
Pryzius sensed it too, and Gaeld had jumped to his feet almost as soon as I felt the disturbance, freeing his wicked, curved blades from their scabbards across his back.
Dancer was at my side in a blur of motion, actually readying his own weapon a fraction of a second earlier than the Sundered Champion.
“I’ve felt this before,” I whispered under my breath, hoping only Dancer and Pi’Vari would hear me. Pi’Vari blanched and Dancer tightened his grip on Sky Splitter. “We need to get out on deck. Now!” I yelled, and while Pryzius had a guarded look on his face, he nodded and we raced out of the dining hall using doors located on our respective ends of the room.
When we were out on the deck, the feeling of foreboding had intensified until I actually felt sick to my stomach. I scanned the clear night sky until my eyes came to rest on the glowing orb of the giant, full moon which was easily twice—and maybe three times—the diameter of the one I grew up beneath.
There was an unfamiliar shape silhouetted against its silvery disc, and Pryzius immediately looked up after seeing my eyes fixed on it. The shape increased in size and detail as it drew closer, which after a few seconds I recognized as some kind of horse.
And riding on its back was none other than the Iron Butcher.
“Be careful with your magic,” I yelled at Pryzius in the few remaining seconds before our foe was on us, “it seems to absorb some spells, and doing so actually increases its power!” Only then did I notice that the younger Tyrdren was holding a different staff than the one I had previously seen him carry, but I needed to make sure my companions were all on the same page. I began fixing the Spell Key to my hand, glad for the hours of practice I had put in which had a steadying effect on my nerves.
“Stand together, Veldyrians!” I yelled, hoping my men would take my meaning that we should cooperate with Pryzius and Gaeld—at least for this fight.
Then the time for words was over, as a soul-piercing scream erupted from above us in some hideous, terrifying approximation of a horse’s whinny with something else buried in the unearthly shriek…something strangely familiar.
I finished attaching the Spell Key to my hand and aimed it at the Butcher just as his mount carried him onto the deck of the Black Ranger, where he landed with incredible force. The impact smashed dozens of planks into splinters, and actually set the airship off its axis just enough to cause me to lose my balance.
Dancer, on the other hand, was in the air before the Iron Butcher had touched down, with his spear held above his head as he clearly intended to land a game-changing blow in the opening exchange of the fight. His small, heavily-muscled body hurtled through the air as he drew his precious weapon back, preparing to plunge it into our nightmarish foe with every last scrap of strength in his body.
The Iron Butcher didn’t seem to notice my Champion’s attack, failing to move even an inch as Dancer’s spear plunged toward its armored neck.
Then, in the moment before impact, the Butcher’s body flickered like a cheap horror movie effect and Dancer crashed into the deck behind his target’s position. He had passed completely through the Butcher’s form as though the iron-bound nightmare hadn’t even been there.
My heart sank, since Sky Splitter was easily our most powerful offensive weapon. If it was useless against the Iron Butcher we only had one clear path to victory—and I needed to reserve my energy for that option.
Seemingly ignoring Dancer—who had spun and kipped back to his feet almost as soon as he had come to a stop on the wooden deck—the Iron Butcher drew its weapons and dismounted, looking every bit the unstoppable mega-villain slowly closing in for the kill.
Then Gaeld entered the fray.
His blades flashed in a blur as his weapons struck the Iron Butcher’s armor, causing showering bursts dull red sparks with each impact. Those flashes effectively blotted out my view of the action, due to the rapid-fire delivery of my former Champion’s assault.
The shower of sparks was over in just a few seconds when the Butcher managed to effectively block both of Gaeld’s blades with its hook and cleaver. The Iron Butcher’s body was now wreathed in a dull, reddish glow the same color as the sparks Gaeld’s blades had caused, and I had to assume that the Sundered Champion’s weapons had delivered some kind of spell into the ancient creature’s armor.
For a brief moment the two warriors regarded each other before the battle began in earnest.
Gaeld struck low with his blades, rolling to the side as he did so to avoid the Butcher’s vicious swipe with its rusty, barbed hook. The Sundered warrior didn’t manage to avoid the following cleaver strike entirely however, catching a glancing blow off his shoulder before rolling out of harm’s way. But I had seen Gaeld fight before, and I knew that every motion was a lethally effective attack.
He spun and hurled his left-hand blade at the Butcher’s body, springing off his back foot and gripping his remaining weapon with both hands before driving squarely toward his quarry’s torso. The Iron Butcher easily flicked the thrown weapon aside with its broad cleaver, at the same time preparing a counter for Gaeld’s follow-up attack.
At that moment, Dancer tore into the ancient monster’s exposed flank with a long, savage swipe of his spear, which he gripped like a lumberjack trying to cut down an old-growth tree with one swing.
Sky Splitter impacted on the iron-clad nightmare’s armor, but this time there were no sparks like when Gaeld had struck his savage blows. Instead, the spear flashed with a brilliant, deep blue light as it scored a hit under the Iron Butcher’s right arm.
But like all determined warriors, the Iron Butcher never lost sight of his target and he brought his weapons together in a criss-crossing pattern just as Gaeld was about to land a blow of his own.
The juggernaut’s timing was perfect, and the barbed hook pierced Gaeld in the upper chest. The black-skinned, unarmored warrior managed to somehow evade the brutal cleaver’s deathblow by twisting his body, causing the rusted blade to miss his skin by less than an inch.
Then the nightmare’s steed entered the fray. It leapt forward, and only then did I notice it had six legs instead of four. It used the front pair to kick Dancer halfway across the deck just before he had completed reversing his grip on Sky Splitter, causing him to lose the spear as it clattered to the deck not far from where he landed.
Meanwhile, the Butcher smashed Gaeld’s impaled body repeatedly on the deck using his gory hook, and only through incredibly quick reactions did Pryzius’ Champion manage to deflect the massive cleaver each time it came down in a deadly chop intended to dismember him.
There was nothing I could do to help Gaeld at that moment, so I focused on an enemy I thought I had an actually chance to harm.
The six-legged ‘horse’ was made of similar, insane geometry and design as the Iron Butcher. There were criss-crossing veins of the same cruel razor wire, running rhythmically through grooves worn deep into its iron hide, which seemed to writhe and actually change its physical shape with every motion, no matter how subtle.
Its head looked almost exactly like the warhorses decked out for battle in movies with medieval heavy cavalry, except it had no eyes; merely slits where those eyes should have been, which glowed a deep, rich blue. The color caught my attention, because I was certain that the Iron Butcher itself had glowed with a purple color the first time we had fought it.
Even its feet seemed more mechanical than organic in design, with the hooves resembling what I would have sworn were engine pistons glowing cherry red with heat which caused the deck to scorch and occasionally erupt in small flames wherever it stood.
I decided that Dancer needed some help, so I raised the Spell Key and closed my eyes having prepared it to generate its first, weaker effect. The second effect was just too risky, and since I doubted the Iron Butcher was anything but stronger than the last time
we had faced it, there was really no point in expending the amount of energy it required.
I hadn’t remembered the Iron Butcher having a steed depicted anywhere, so I was betting that it wasn’t as durable as its rider since it was likely a separate conjuration of some kind, rather than an actual part of the murderous creature who had almost succeeded in killing us all back at Dome Mountain.
The spell sprung to life in my mind’s eye, and I breathed what I thought was the proper amount of energy into it before unleashing it on my target. I was clearly getting better at this particular manifestation since it felt natural to me this time, and my timing was almost as perfect as when I had unleashed the same spell on the Iron Butcher itself.
The bolt of white energy leapt from my hand and smashed into the nightmarish horse, knocking it off its feet and sending it sliding twenty or thirty feet across the deck. It thrashed for a few seconds before finding its feet and screaming its chilling battle cry, and I thought it was a perfect opportunity for Dancer to take it to the fiendish mount.
But Dancer wasn’t interested in the strangely mechanical horse; after regaining his own feet, his focus was squarely on the Iron Butcher.
Gaeld was still getting abused by the seemingly unstoppable killing machine and, though I doubted he was near the end of his line, I knew there was a limit to the amount of punishment even a Sundered warrior could take. As if to emphasize my thought, the Iron Butcher—with his hook still impaled in Gaeld’s torso—slammed the Sundered Champion into the deck’s wooden planks with enough force to send splinters into the air.
Dancer leapt impossibly high—at least twenty feet above the deck—planting his foot in the metal stirrup near Sky Splitter’s tip and pointing his fearsome weapon at the Iron Butcher’s neck as he came down from his magically-enhanced leap. That was higher than I had ever seen him jump unassisted, and I suspected that the little man’s slow fusion with Co’Zar’I’Us was the cause of his apparently increased abilities.
His body and Sky Splitter looked like a single, deadly object—like a missile that intended to deliver its deadly payload to their mutual enemy. As his hair flew wildly around his head, I saw the glyph of Co’Zar’I’Us glowing almost white and my suspicions as to the origin of his newfound prowess were reinforced.
In the instant before Sky Splitter impaled the Iron Butcher in what we all apparently assumed was a weak spot where its helmet met its shoulders, the monstrous engine of destruction swung its cleaver upward with blinding speed, blocking the spear’s tip with the flat of its blade. At the same time, the Butcher swung Gaeld’s body upward, smashing its two foes together in mid-air with a sickening crunch.
Gaeld was somehow knocked loose of the hook by the collision, which sent Dancer smashing into the stern castle’s lowest level as his body shattered one of the windows there and he hurtled into the chamber beyond. Sky Splitter was knocked from his grip in flight, and its shaft shattered against the wall outside that chamber while its tip came to rest near the base of the stern castle.
The Sundered warrior wasted no time in getting to his feet, although Dancer was nowhere to be seen. Gaeld held out his hand as he sprinted toward the Iron Butcher, his second, curved blade flying into his hand seemingly out of nowhere like a perfectly thrown boomerang as he never broke stride on his way to reunite with his foe.
Those weapons of Gaeld’s were clearly enchanted weapons, much like Dancer’s own Sky Splitter, and Gaeld hadn’t had them while still in the service of House Wiegraf. For some reason he seemed to be uncannily familiar with them.
Gaeld sliced and stabbed with those blades, reversing his momentum unpredictably to create new angles of attack, and every single strike was part of an elaborate, almost mesmerizing sequence that might as well have been a well-choreographed dance routine. It was better than any action scene I’d ever seen by a long shot, and I felt rising hope that Gaeld might actually be able to defeat the behemoth.
But the Iron Butcher was just too fast, and even when Gaeld occasionally managed to land a direct hit there was no appreciable damage to his target that I could see.
I risked a glance at Pryzius, who hadn’t contributed at all to this point and saw that he was deep in meditation of some kind which clearly involved his staff. Both he and it were enveloped in a strange, grey aura that seemed to drain the ambient light. He was obviously casting some kind of spell, but I had no way of knowing what it was.
I really didn’t want to use any more magic than was absolutely necessary, but seeing the Iron Butcher’s steed charge toward Gaeld I decided it was necessary.
Once again I used the disc-shaped key to summon the spell into my mind’s eye, and once again it obeyed. Almost before I had visualized the entire structure comprising the spell itself, I poured energy out of myself in an effort to fire the weapon even quicker this time. I hoped to intercept the warhorse before it reached Gaeld, whose back was still turned to it.
Rushing the spell turned out to be a bad idea.
The spell exploded in front of me as a chain reaction went off within it’s phantasmal form too fast for me to see, and the blast sent a shockwave outward in all directions. The force of the explosion threw me from my feet and into the second deck of the stern castle where I collapsed on the deck of the small, raised walkway we had just come out onto from the dining hall.
Surprisingly, I didn’t lose consciousness this time but I was sure that my head had been cut judging from the pain that pulsed throughout my skull. Thankfully my wits were still with me, so the damage would have to wait for a proper appraisal until later.
It was the second time I had misused the device, and the result had been the same as the first. I cursed myself as I grabbed the rail, dragging myself back to my feet.
Gaeld had actually diverted some of his own attention toward the fiendish horse, and it appeared that my supposition was correct: the horse was far more easily damaged than the Iron Butcher was—a conclusion which Gaeld had apparently also reached.
So he slashed at its legs as he ran full-circle around it, and just when it appeared that the creature was going to line up a devastating kick on him, he leapt onto its back and stabbed down into its neck with both of his enchanted blades. There was a terrible sound of screeching iron as those blades plunged all the way to the hilt in the creature’s armored form.
The horse struggled and bucked, but the vicious warrior wasn’t about to let his dominant position go to waste. He wrenched his swords with his entire body, and even from almost a hundred feet away I could see his knotted muscles trembling as they bulged from the strain.
Then, with a final herculean twist of his torso, Gaeld tore the horse’s head clean off—taking more than half of its neck with it. The same deep, rich blue energy blasted out of the death wound in front of the Sundered warrior, this time taking a smoky form before dissipating almost instantly after leaving the creature’s body. The horse’s head also disintegrated in a flash of blue light, followed by a pile of ash collapsing to the deck underneath where it had last been.
Gaeld rolled off the creature’s spasming corpse a few seconds before it disintegrated in the same fashion as its head, leaving only the Butcher with which he would now contend. But the effort had clearly taken its toll on Gaeld, and for the first time I saw the incredible warrior falter as he stumbled to his knees instead of instantly rushing his quarry.
By then the Iron Butcher had turned its back on Gaeld, as though it somehow knew the Sundered Champion was no longer a threat. The iron juggernaut squared itself to me and paused, seeming to relish my rising fear before charging directly at me. The measure of terror I felt in that moment was—and is—one I had hoped to never re-experience. There was nothing standing between myself and the murderous engine of destruction, and I knew I had only one option left to me.
Before I could gather my wits to begin casting the spell I thought had the best chance of finishing this fight, a tendril of dark, pulsating energy extended from the area to my right. That tendril encircl
ed the Iron Butcher’s charging body and stopped it dead in its tracks.
I looked over and saw Pryzius holding his staff, the tip of which was the point of origin for the dark, grey beam.
His face was contorted as he visibly struggled to control the spell. “Jezran,” he growled through clenched teeth, “finish it! I cannot hold it for long!”
How he had been able to stop the thing at all was a question I thought very much needed answering, but that would have to come later. I closed my eyes and was taken aback by what I saw in my mind’s eye.
It was my Dream Casting spells—the same ones I had used to kill Mistress Tyreva from the Middle Wall of Coldetz Castle. But I hadn’t consciously summoned them into my mind, which raised an obvious alarm but I didn’t have time to question it just then. For all I knew, Pryzius might not be able to hold the rampaging monster for more than a few seconds, so I flooded the spells with the energy they needed and executed them simultaneously.
Chapter XXXII: An Imaginary Revelation
I was in the dreamscape. I knew I was in the dreamscape because I was holding the same weapon I had brought when entering Mistress Tyreva’s dream world: a double-barreled, twelve gauge shotgun hot-loaded with a pair of Teflon-tipped, depleted uranium, slugs.
Belief was actually more important in the dream world than reality, so having a weapon I really believed was going to be effective regardless of circumstances was essential—no matter how infeasible that weapon might actually be in the real world. If I had truly believed that a metal teacup was the most devastating weapon available to me, then manifesting it would have allowed me to channel the same deadly energy into my target as imagining a neutron bomb.
I was standing in a doorway of some kind. In front of me was the inside of a house that seemed familiar. I dismissed the sense of familiarity as being a reflection of the dreamer’s own experiences, which I knew I could feel as a result of my proximity to the dreamer’s consciousness.
Revelation (Seeds of Humanity: The Cobalt Heresy) Page 38
